The Tourney
by Reed R Gale
Summary: Chance to be great, chance to fail, chance to rise, chance to fall, chance to mingle, chance to change.


Prologue

Somewhere in the world, an annoying digital alarm clock is waking up a boy. Pretty normal. Pretty simple. In fact, I think most people experience this at some point in their lives, not that this particular boy even needed the extra reminder. He had already been awake for a couple minutes. The first week of school was finally over. Out of habit, the boy had set the alarm for 6:00, but in the end he had been lying in bed for the past ten minutes.

The night had been filled with the dread of returning to hell. Or rather, going to it. It would be his first day in high school and almost no child looks forward to that. There are a choice few, but this child is definitely not one of them. He himself hated school. Boring. Useless. They taught very little that he hadn't already known, but maybe that was just grade school. Maybe high school would be different.

He doubted it. He was also right. The boy was already rather studious, and in his free time was spent at the Old Oak with his friends, or at the library researching on a whim. Due to this, he was rather well versed.

In any case, the boy decided that he should get up to keep up his routine, the boy got out of his bed and put on his clothes, a long sleeved blue shirt, and blue jeans. The morning was cold, however, and the bed so warm and inviting, that even with his clothes on, this kid jumped eagerly under the covers once again. Besides, what were a couple of minutes. After all he was up early.

Actually, the boy hadn't a clue how much time he had gotten actually sleeping. It was one of those nights of cold sweat, where one just lay, closed their eyes, and possibly drifted to and out of sleep. It was a time when time is forgotten, when all one can do is lay, listening to the odd buzz of quiet that permeates all rooms, a little buzz in the back of your head that never goes away no matter how quiet. And then you think.

You think about anything, letting thoughts drift in and out like a tide, in, out, high tide, low tide. Eventually, you find that light starts to flood through your window, or if you don't have a window, then an odd change takes place, you just know it's no longer night, that you had let the simple thing known as sleep pass you by.

Before he knew it, while pondering how much sleep he had gotten the night previous, he was asleep again, but not long enough to dream, so in essence, it was much like the rest of the night. A blinking of the eyes, and a passage of time on the clock. When the kid again awoke, he saw that is was 8 o'clock. This time he was ready to get up, his clothes delightfully warm, but only for a few moments, soon it had acclimated, and so had the boy. Wait, no he had school, right! He bounced up, something nagging in the back of his head to take it slow.

His mother was gone, and sister was still asleep so he walked up to the refrigerator and stared for a moment, much like a normal case of morning amnesia. You know you're supposed to be doing something, perhaps important, perhaps not, but you just can't remember what it was you were doing. But finally it hit him, the points had connected! Yes, eating. He cracked open the fridge, being greeted by a nice cold breath of air, and in one glance he spied some eggs. He went over what he could do with the eggs in his head and decided on scrambling them, because it was simple, hard to mess up, and the fridge still had some ketchup to spare.

After cooking and devouring his simple meal, he headed for the hallway that led to the door to the outside world, freedom. No wait, that wasn't right. He wasn't free he had hell to attend, no wait it was high school. He had mixed the two up.

While he was pondering this however, he heard footsteps coming down the stairs in the opposite direction. Although he knew who was making the noises he turned his head anyway, to see Celia, his younger sister, with her short, brown hair and sleepy green eyes staring at him. "Morning, Reed. You cooking something?"

"Nothing for you, sis." The boy promptly replied in response to hearing his nickname. And then before the incoming complaints bombarded him, the boy, no Redaj, darted for the door. After closing it, he realized he had nowhere to go, that's right, it was Saturday. He had just followed instinct in the same manner that someone who followed the same routine everyday would take. They were perfect until they ran into a blip in the schedule.

Pondering it for a while he concluded that he would just wander aimlessly around, admiring the beautiful forest that surrounded his town, the town of Heyley. The place was small, reasonably rural, a place that didn't receive many visitors. The weather was rarely sunny, but that was okay in the boy's books. Cloudy was his favorite weather, followed by mist, then rain. Though he had to admit, a cloudless starry night had its own appeal.

Leaving wisps of gold and brown on the ground, he crunched leaves under his feet as he strolled, a relaxing sound. The air was clean and crisp, and there were only a few people out and about. Taking his time, Redaj wandered into town, taking a turn here and a twist there, with no real destination in mind.

In the end he sat outside the library on a bench, dedicated to whoever, and just watched. It was all so gleefully boring. He decided that was enough watching, and he actually walked up the steps to the library. What would he research today? A good thought. He racked his brain for something but came up blank, so picked up a book he had read a few times before:

_The Myths of Heyley_

If only the town were as interesting now as it was in the past, but now it was just a lazy town with automations for people. The boy sighed and put down the book containing fanciful wars of the past, though they were probably exaggerated. Hero with special powers, ha! "Impossible." He sneered, but he thought it over. If he could have special powers, what would he want? He shook away the silly thought. The boy liked fanciful things, but he understood logic.

Magic powers in this world didn't make logical sense. He glanced around the quiet place and spied the clock, already hours had passed. He forgot time and hunger when he was reading. Oh, hunger. His stomach was like an angry beast, one that he had forced into a corner. That was usually a bad idea, so he got up and headed home.

Once there, he ate some combination of lunch and dinner, conversing with his mother and sister about their boring days. Once upstairs, Redaj decided he may as well work on his homework, since there was nothing better to do, he had no new books, and the computer was only really a distraction. The assignment was cleverly titled: "An Introduction of Myself". Pfft.

_Hello Muraid High School! My name is Redaj, 14 years old, and a freshman this year._

Then at a loss of what to write he started jotting down his physical dimensions on another sheet of paper.

_-Hazel eyes_

_-Brown hair_

_-5' 6''_

_..._

Redaj let out an audible sigh, "What is the point of this writing assignment, anyone could just see or ask all this when it matters." He exaggerated the two points with his hands, using them like a judge's scale, "Use some common sense!" He picked up the sheet of paper, crumpled it up, and lit the paper on fire over his trash can.

Life was a total bore, this town of Hayley seemed pointless and nothing Redaj did was interesting. Unlike most people in Hayley, he was not content with just living. He wanted to do something great, be something greater. He was not content with just existing.

People in Hayley just didn't get his view-point, his style, they didn't get him, nor did they want to understand the way he wanted to live. Life on the edge, the brink of life, always finding something new to occupy his mind, ever changing problems to solve.

Though he was in conflict with himself however; a contradiction one might call him. At the same time he didn't want to worry about consequences, didn't want to lose his peaceful life. That side of him he had inherited from his town, a true love for peaceful times and serene things. The forest was his friend, the lakes his companion. Most of all he loved to nap, quite the opposite of his dreams.

Still.

"I'll work more on the assignment tomorrow, I've got all weekend." He sighed. The budding adult walked over to his desk and shut off the light, plunging the room in darkness due to the lack of the one source of light. He lay in bed that evening focusing his mind on a world where life was interesting, exciting, and overall intriguing.

"This world needs something more interesting." thought the boy. That was his last thought before the rolling blackness known as sleep hit his eyes.

-

Author's Comments:

Kinda boring, but a look into mundane life. If you got a feel for the character, and you had a relative boring time reading it, then I'm doing it right. Ever heard the phrase, "Be careful what you wish for"? Ya that applies. OMG SPOILERS. Totally reworked the beginning. 3 times. In other news, hello again Fanfiction~! Miss me? Ya, I thought not.


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